


Extant

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [61]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:16:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7177064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paperwork is a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extant

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day. This time from 7/2/1999 with the word [extant](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/1999/07/02/extant).
> 
> extant  
> Still existing; not destroyed, lost, or extinct.
> 
> Paperwork does not simply vanish much as Gibbs wishes it would.
> 
> Comments, kudos, and constructive criticism greatly appreciated.

# 

Extant

“Where the hell did all this paperwork come from?” Gibbs demanded with a low growl and a glare.

“Did you piss off the toothpick recently?” DiNozzo asked sardonically.

Gibbs just narrowed his eyes at DiNozzo in a warning before turning to McGee with his explain this expression.

“Apparently this is all our outstanding extant paperwork. Some of it dates back years.” McGee stated rolling his eyes. “Say we have a case and don’t have to do it boss, please?” McGee liked computers, but even he wasn’t a fan of filling out the actual paperwork that came with the job. Especially not these huge mountains of it that were from many many years ago.

Tony butted in with, “Either we’re on someone’s shit list in HR or you pissed off Vance enough to get him to actually care about the timeliness of our paperwork.”

“You’d best get to work then, hadn’t you? I’ll be back later.” Gibbs replied as he headed up to give Vance a piece of his mind.

“Where” Tony started followed up with an “Ow” as he rubbed the back of his head in response to Gibbs’ head slap. “Right, back to work.” He muttered as Gibbs walked up the stairs.

“How much paperwork do you think there is, Probie? Can we start an office guessing pool on it?” Tony asked as he stared in dismay at the piles upon piles of paperwork between all 4 of their desks. There wasn’t even enough room to walk down the large aisle that was usually between his and McGee’s desk and Gibbs and Bishop’s desk. When Gibbs had stomped off to Vance’s office, he’d even had to detour around to another team’s aisle to be able to get to the stairs.

“Tony!” McGee exclaimed aghast. 

“Oh. That’s right, you don’t like starting office pools. Don’t worry I’ll get Abby to do it. It will be more scientific that way, anyway.” Tony pulled up his IM program and sent Abby a quick message about the office pool and asked to be put down for the 30000 papers guess.

Bishop just shook her head and continued to work on her stack of papers. Since she had been here for fewer years than most of the rest her pile of papers was a lot smaller. She only had a thousand or so more papers to go. She couldn’t wait to be done with her stack and have an excuse to spend the rest of her time analyzing her teammates while they did paperwork.

The door slammed open as Gibbs barged into Vance’s office without giving the secretary a chance to announce him. “What is the meaning of this, Leon?” He asked as he let the door close behind him with a resounding thud from the force of opening and moved to stand directly in front of Vance’s desk.

“Of what, Gibbs?” Leon asked. 

“The mountain of paperwork in the bullpen. There isn’t even enough room to work. My team has better things to be doing.” Gibbs spoke dangerously.

“Are you saying your team is too good for procedures, Gibbs?” Vance stared back with his toothpick dangling out of his mouth.

“No.” Gibbs narrowed his eyes. “What’s really going on?”

“I’ve told you before that SecNav commanded I get my house in order when I took over from Jenny. This is part of it. Every team is having to update their paperwork not just yours. We just started with yours because you have the most outstanding paperwork of all the teams.” Leon replied reasonably.

Gibbs couldn’t really refute that snarling as he left and returned to the bullpen. Moving silently so as to watch his team, he was disappointed when he saw DiNozzo flicking spitballs at McGee again. Walking up directly behind DiNozzo, he yelled. “Get to work people. The faster you finish the paperwork the sooner we can catch a case.”

Bishop looked up from her stack of papers. “I’m almost done boss. Only have these 20 or so left.”

“Good. You can help McGee and Tony with theirs then.” Gibbs growled. Truthfully, he’d have loved to sic her with some of his paperwork too, but most of the papers in his stack were ones he had to fill out himself or at best have Tony fill out as his SFA. He had truly thought the paperwork had been burned or destroyed in some manner. He was not looking forward to actually filling it all out.

Bishop groaned, but knew better than to ask why she was helping Tim and Tony.

Gibbs answered her anyway. “We’re a team, Bishop. We can’t go out on a case until the whole team can. So the sooner you help them with their paperwork the sooner we can all go out.”

The team all looked at Gibbs wondering why he was actually doing paperwork and making them do theirs. They exchanged some looks amongst themselves, but returned to their stacks of paperwork quickly not wanting to get caught.

Apparently the MCRT actually doing their paperwork was a sight to behold as almost all agents found an excuse to walk past the bullpen that day. Gibbs finally had enough and snapped, “Do I need to find paperwork for everyone to do? I’m sure Director Vance has plenty.” 

When he received no response, he questioned dangerously. “No?”

“Then get back to work and stop gawking.” Gibbs barked.


End file.
